


a ghost story

by samarqand



Category: The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:00:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24366931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samarqand/pseuds/samarqand
Summary: Maybe everyone's stories are already written for them. From the Third Age through the Fourth, Legolas and Aragorn learn to navigate inevitability.
Relationships: Aragorn | Estel/Legolas Greenleaf
Comments: 36
Kudos: 115





	a ghost story

**Author's Note:**

> 中文翻译 / Chinese translation [here](http://www.mtslash.me/thread-318225-1-1.html) [requires account to view] and [here](https://armuremure.lofter.com).
> 
> This fic primarily draws from the LOTR movie canon, but some details from the novels (mainly in the pre-FOTR beginning and the post-ROTK ending) are included for more depth and structure.

**THIRD AGE**

Aragorn is the one to teach Legolas what a ghost is, on the night they first meet. “Ghost” is a curious noun, hopelessly broad in order to meet numerous expectations: terror and sweetness, despair and hope. A muddied term, defying any certainty. A word vague and utterly foreign in its description to Elven ears –- and perhaps, to this prince, all the more riveting for it.

Legolas is regarding him with his head tipped to one side, some shade of suspicion on his face, like he may not believe this newcomer, this Aragorn son of Arathorn called "Strider" of Rivendell and Gondor and nowhere in particular, when he tells him that some Men have seen ghosts of other Men.

“Akin to,” Legolas pauses, mulling over the idea in his where he sits comfortably in the curve of a tree bough, “those fearsome creatures of Tyrn Gorthad who prowl their land of darkness, seeking to destroy as they have been so destroyed. We have heard tales here.”

“Well,” Aragorn says, and weighs this for a moment, reflecting on the Barrow-wights. “Not quite.” He mirrors Legolas’ tilted head. “A ghost needn’t desecrate hallowed places with harm-doing like the Barrow-wights do.”

“Yet this spectral affliction –- “ (Aragorn nods, swallowing a smile) “ -– seems particular to Men. So, could the wights be ghosts of some ilk?”

“Ghosts don’t inherently mean harm,” Aragorn says carefully, thinking back to his mother and her small tales, engrossing but still cleaned up for children’s ears; thinking to the other Rangers and their occasional spooked reports murmured around a pipe. Some encounters in the wild beggar belief at times. “Ghosts, they say, are bound to an unfinished purpose. They linger until they find a way to fulfill a promise or duty.”

“Have you met a ghost?” Legolas asks. A smile plays at this Elf’s lips; he remains, it seems, disbelieving of this strange fate of some Men. It makes Aragon smile openly in return, wondering at his own self-indulgence to have spent so much time on the nigh impossible task of persuading Legolas to believe something unnatural to the elegant ears of Elves.

Aragorn leans back on their shared bough, taking care where he places his hands behind him in support. He has been sharing these oak branches, high and hidden, with this Mirkwood prince for some time now; it occurs to him that the sun will be rising soon, and he will have been out here in this untamed Realm, just outside the vast halls of the Elvenking, ostensibly readying himself for his first restful night in many days, for over two hours now.

Just a little longer.

“No,” Aragorn admits.

“Would you like to?”

“Most Men would like to avoid ghosts.”

“Ah, I think so would they the Barrow-wights,” Legolas catches him, raising his chin and piercing Aragorn with a playful, knowing look, a fine imitation of his father King Thranduil's imperious bearing. And yet different. Free of Thranduil’s cold presence, Legolas is inexplicably warm despite the charcoal shades and long dark haunting Mirkwood. It is a wonder to Aragorn that someone so fair could have spent his entire long life within this blighted forest and emerge unscathed.

“Avoidance is the easier task for Men than grappling with our greatest mystery,” Aragorn offers.

Legolas wraps his arms around his knees, understanding then that he speaks of death. He falls silent and regards Aragorn openly. With only distant amber of torches peeking through from the Realm’s caverns, Legolas calls to Aragorn’s mind the flash of a bright blossom in deep forest, blooming in spite of the tireless shadows that would choke it.

 _The flowers no longer bloom here_ , Legolas had told him that evening after he'd washed his hands of Gollum, took his leave of Legolas’ father. _The small flowers that have with every spring dashed across this forest floor as though a blanket, they have vanished._

And yet, here Legolas is.

Mirkwood is a world apart -- Legolas stands apart -- from Rivendell and Lothlórien. Lofty and bright, the halls of Elrond that ring with well-preserved memory of the Elder Days breathe not one impression that another kingdom of Elves exists beyond the mountains; these Elves just to the East shimmer amid an earthy dusk, cold moss and daunting antlers embraced and built into something that entices and forbids in tandem, powerful as river current and primal as moonlight. 

And meanwhile, the stars peek through the nearly impassible tree canopy, doggedly waiting for a glimpse of the fair Woodland creatures through the leaves. Such seems the power of Legolas and his people’s communion with the wild forest.

Aragorn holds Legolas’ gaze, embracing the quiet floating between him and his newfound friend. An owl calls somewhere in the depths of wood; the wind picks up and brushes Legolas’ golden hair.

He thinks of Arwen shining beneath her airy halls. She glows regal and distinct as a guiding star in the clear heavens, and as beautiful. And yet, he cannot place her here in Mirkwood among her northern kin. He remembers Elrond in his rooms steeped in sunlight defining the Woodland Realm’s Elves as “inward-looking,” a charitable descriptor when Aragorn has heard other, less tactful Elves of Imladris call the Realm “confounding” and “coarse.”

And yet, here Legolas is.

Then Legolas turns his head to listen to something absurdly far away. “My Elven-lord speaks of you to his guard,” he remarks, leaning forward to meet the rustle of breeze through their oak tree.

“Well, I did saddle him with that pitiable wretch,” Aragorn murmurs, casting a glance about the quiet forest floor, half-expecting to find Gollum creeping past the exposed tree roots and night-misted ferns toward some unpleasant bidding. “And with a troublesome task only Mirkwood’s Elves could be trusted with, given our captive’s slippery proclivities. Let us hope with Gandalf’s arrival we end the affair with Gollum, so that our attention may be paid to other challenges.”

“He is wondering why you’ve taken up in this oak with me.”

Aragorn pauses.

Legolas examines a fallen leaf.

“I ought to have taken my leave a few hours ago,” Aragorn slowly admits. “I do not mean to overstep.”

“I am pleased you stayed here, Aragorn son of Arathorn.” Legolas smiles, lighting up the dark. “You are indeed welcome in the Woodland Realm, though the climes of our vast home may have been friendlier in times past.”

Aragorn moves to clamber down from the tree -- only to find Legolas is standing on the black forest floor, already having silently slipped past him. Aragorn slides down, sure-footed and capable and yet lacking the finesse afforded only to an Elf. He scrapes his knee loudly.

Legolas presses a grateful hand to the oak’s craggy skin, lingering before wondering aloud to no one in particular: “And after all, what is a Ranger without his roaming free?”

Aragorn huffs a laugh.

“You have need of sleep. Come, where you can rest without worry.”

“Thank you, Legolas,” Aragorn says, and with the long, chilled dark shrouding their path, they retreat to the Elvenking’s Caverns. Silver lamps filled with amber light bathe their entrance, lulling Aragorn into drowsy calm.

Inside, past the waiting and silent Elven guard and attendants, the rich brown and near-obsidian of wood harken back to the ruined beauty of Menegroth. Thrandruil seeks to jealously preserve the glory of Elvendom, it's plain to see, and he has for now succeeded. No place for Dwarves remains in these caverns or within the story of Mirkwood -– a historical revisionism befitting Thranduil’s antipathy.

Above their meandering path and amid finely wrought stone and tree bole rests the Elvenking’s intimidating throne. So far-flung and so towering it is within the halls, Aragorn cannot say whether Thranduil is still there with his long legs thrown over the throne’s arm, ready to eviscerate with a glance -- and he wonders briefly if the king is not watching him from on high.

Legolas, Aragorn notes with a Ranger’s keen observation, keeps Aragorn focused on the inviting aspects of the gloaming expanse he calls home. He points out to Aragorn the carvings of beech trees and noble firs; he identifies each bird etched smoothly into the walls, spindly pillars, and precious furniture appointed to the wide spaces they stroll past.

Down labyrinthine halls, quiet laughter and singing casts the realm in a kinder color. “I envision Lúthien the fair walking these halls,” Aragorn says by way of compliment, and Legolas turns his head back to Aragorn with a slight smile. Aragorn recognizes it straight from Imladris: the indulgent little smile Elves will bestow upon other races who try but never quite succeed at practicing Elvishness. 

“So Lord Elrond has told you of the erstwhile majesty of Menegroth, and of Lúthien and Beren's tale.”

In Quenya, daringly, Aragorn declares, “Their tale is my destiny.”

Legolas stops in his tracks; he regards Aragorn with plain-stated surprise on his beautiful face, Aragorn realizes he, only a Man, is woefully unprepared to insert himself into the ancient Elven politics of language, and he is in the presence of a Sindarin prince -– but then Legolas laughs like soft chimes, and exclaims in gentle and instructive Sindarin, “Ai, dear Aragorn, I fear my Elven-lord will have you sleep out with the horses if you breathe another word of Quenya in his Realm.”

“Forgive me.” Aragorn returns to Sindarin, a smile on his face for hearing Legolas’ laughter. “The tiresome journey and fine company have made me foolish.”

“Nay. As for me, I am impressed,” Legolas excuses him magnanimously.

He ushers Aragorn into a spacious bedchamber for guests, procures small sweets smelling of rosewater seemingly from nowhere -- and clean water in a jug. He places both by Aragorn’s bedside, sharp silence and grace.

“I am loath to leave, for I have much to learn from you about the world we share,” Legolas says. Aragorn shakes his head, aware that Legolas has bestowed on him something he can't explain, yet something he knows Elves don't readily give. “But you have already given me much to reflect upon indeed. Thank you.”

“Tomorrow,” Aragorn affirms, weighing if it would be a step too far to suggest Legolas simply stay with him a little longer.

Legolas bows his head and closes Aragorn’s door before Aragorn can ask, and they don’t find each other in the morning. Aragorn doesn’t see him again until nearly one year later, when he sits among his folk and strangers, the pieces of a circle of small hope in all the shadows of the world.

+

Legolas dreams of swimming. The grey sea surges about him, shackling his limbs down where the undertow surges, omnipotent. Still he strives, seeking a distant shore. He sees it ahead when his eyes aren’t blinded by the snowy froth of whitecaps; he feels it waiting on him. He sets his gaze forward in the breath before the next swell, until he too is panting like the rush of the water, losing sense of space and time.

The waves overtake him and swimming dissolves into struggling –- struggle against weight, against suffocation, against time. He swallows salt water and it churns heavy inside him. The sea is dense. The shoreline encourages him to exhaust himself. The waves tip him into the deep; he finds himself swimming down, surrounded by grey growing black.

And he emerges from the dark with a light blink, grounding himself within the waking world to escape from the fearful reverie.

One night he had softly cried out with his hands over his face, freshly escaped from his own mind, or perhaps the mind of Amroth, drowned and cold; he had wanted to weep and ask why, why the sea would turn on him when he sought naught but to find safe passage. “Lad,” Gimli had gruffed, so mistaken in his estimation of Legolas’ age, and so alarmed by this display. Legolas had composed himself immediately with a word of assurance to Gimli; he vowed then to hide these reveries before they became a burden to his friends. 

He instead draws strength from Gimli just as Gimli draws comfort from him: exchanging stories both happy and sad, companionable silence shared while walking and observing what they will observe, and sincere answers to tentative questions about each other’s disparate natures.

“Shall we go take a look?” Legolas inevitably asks Gimli whenever they settle in for brief respites on their journey. Off they go, round the perimeter of safety, easy in their trust of one another. Aragorn sometimes smiles mildly after them, a stain of wistfulness on his dark features -- which Legolas never comments upon lest Aragorn bury this small honesty. Aragorn makes for a lonely silhouette, holding himself to a standard found only in legend and the long stanzas of heroics past. Kingly but restrained. It is attractive, Legolas has already admitted to himself. It is attractive as it is sobering.

Legolas will sing to Aragorn sometimes when they share moments of peace together; sometimes he will cajole Aragorn with a simple song in his Sindarin-accented Quenya to see him smile around his pipe and join in. Sometimes he will craft small ditties about the silver streaking Aragorn’s hair. Gimli claps along, not much for singing. The Dwarf instead tends the fire expertly, and takes great pleasure in getting those satisfying little crackles and snaps out of whatever kindling they have gathered.

The three fly with skylark determination through the shallow green plains of Rohan –- the insurmountable tragedies of Helm’s Deep –- to Isengard to collect two irrepressible little Hobbits -- and finally back to the sturdy city of Edoras. It swells like the hardy horses that Legolas deems the soul of the land, loyal and brave, above a landscape slowly loosening itself from the grip of winter.

As Edoras draws a breath like emergence from great depths, and Merry and Pippin’s return hails in a gossamer thread of hope, Gimli and Legolas take a spare moment to ruminate on Lady Galadriel.

Gimli reminds Legolas of her prayerful silences, her smile like a precious jewel, her eyes brimming with laughter and thunder. He closes his eyes to see her more clearly as if in dreamtime. Legolas listens while admiring the bow she had gifted him, with its taut Elven-string and still-flawless limbs. Remarkable, its resilience.

 _Resilience_ pulls his attention to Aragorn where he stands at some distance with King Théoden and Gandalf; they look unflagging together as storied figures should, but weariness veils their faces as they confer in hushed tones. They are discussing Minas Tirith and what hope they can place in the rule there.

“It would do my heart good in this hour to see her smile upon us again,” Gimli admits with that rough sentimentality of his.

“Be assured your sweet words spoken bravely in Lothlórien will keep the Lady smiling till this Age has folded, and on to the next,” Legolas says with certainty. He sees Aragorn pass a hand over his face and look toward distant Gondor while King Théoden and Gandalf beeline back toward the Golden Hall. Legolas wishes for the shade of a tree to soothe Aragorn’s tired head. “What an impression you leave on Elves, friend Gimli.”

“Her smile, fit to make spring burst into blossom in the dead of winter,” Gimli waxes.

“Spring will come to us again,” says Legolas, more cryptically than intended –- enough to shake Gimli from his debriefing. He gazes where Legolas gazes.

“And you blossom under that one’s smile.”

Legolas turns back to Gimli with a closed expression, recognizing his own indiscretion in an instant. Reckless. “As I do under yours,” he says with a serious face, and places his hand over Gimli’s to make the Dwarf sputter.

“Bah bah!” Gimli balks. “Away with you! My heart is wide enough for only one Elf.”

Legolas laughs and drops his forehead to Gimli’s shoulder. Their stone ledge is sun-baked and warm even in the dying light. The sun, however weakly steeping the landscape, gives him hope for a healing nighttime, nocturnal birds for company. He doesn’t look across the indomitable bone-white peaks that harken to Gondor, Aragorn’s land.

The thought fills Legolas with finality, but he keeps his levity evergreen as Gimli pats his head.

He doesn’t stir from his comfortable spot even when he hears Aragorn approaching, steps calm but foretelling trouble.

Aragorn sits next to Legolas; he follows Gimli’s lead and joins in patting Legolas’ head.

Legolas catches a smug expression on Gimli’s face as he straightens up.

“A tired Elf?” Aragorn asks gently. “Now I have seen everything.”

“I am tireless,” Legolas counters blithely, “but fell into meditation reflecting on springtime with Gimli.” Gimli makes an amused noise and Legolas would shoot him a glance, if only -–

“How do you fare, Gimli?” Aragorn asks. “How is your head?”

Gimli waves him off, quite enough attention poured on him in the past few minutes, Legolas reckons.

Aragorn reaches around Legolas to press a supportive hand to Gimli’s shoulder. He scrutinizes him with a healer’s expertise and judges him hale. “Some happy tidings,” he concludes diplomatically, agreeing to leave the Dwarf be for now.

He then meets Legolas’ gaze over Gimli’s tender head, earnest. “May I speak to you?” he asks in Sindarin.

“Some mead, then,” decides Gimli immediately, having much improved his grasp of Sindarin since Legolas made it a project to teach him a phrase or two daily. He shimmies off the ledge and back into the halls. Wood and stone stand flecked with wheat-gold, Rohan's rude building blocks; familiar elements to Legolas are fashioned here into strange images. Unease spins its web around the two of them.

“Haldir had told me,” Aragorn begins immediately, invoking a name that bows Legolas’ head like willow bough, heavy with the weight of loss -– “that Lady Galadriel and Lord Celeborn are due to join with your father to defend Mirkwood. The threat to your Realm looms imminent now.” He stops short. “You likely heard this.”

“I did,” Legolas responds.

“Legolas, I know your battle is there in the forests.” Aragorn moves closer, a little scoot-scoot so graceless that Legolas recalls Aragorn sliding down from the oak that night: so close in his mind and yet so distant from the new territory they now tread. Moss generously cushioning beneath them, the hush of the river serenading scintillating stars above, and Aragorn’s knees scraping irritably against the lichen-spotted bark. His boots were scuffed upon landing on the earth. The Man had almost -– almost -– lost his balance but none of his charm.

Now, Aragorn regards him gravely. They are many leagues too far in to find their way back to the night they had smiled at one another. “We lost Haldir and many of his best in one fell swoop. And valiantly the Elves fought alongside Men, even as they knew their folk elsewhere were set to face the Enemy in Elven lands. Still they fought.”

Legolas gazes down at his crossed legs. The fabric of his trousers is Elven-made, feather-rich and durable, but the dark green hue seems faded with experience and grief. Legolas feels his years as he tries, “Nay, I cannot utter my sadness aloud, lest..." He pauses, at a loss.

"Legolas." Aragorn's voice is beseeching under his self-possession. "Your Elvenking asked after you. Mirkwood’s battle will be fierce and it will not be swiftly decided. We are ready to ally with Minas Tirith here, but I advise you to journey northward now, back to your folk.”

“I cannot,” Legolas returns, “for my bow is needed here as ever beside you and Gimli and the Men who would expect my support.”

Aragorn stares out at the wearied lands of Rohan and further on toward his homeland. He smells like the horse stables. A small piece of hay is stuck proudly to the future king of Gondor’s back, but Legolas cannot bring himself to touch Aragorn to pick it off, not when he abruptly comprehends that Aragorn means to see him gone.

“Your devotion and your skill have been our salvation, and now,” Aragorn presses, his Sindarin halting now as he endeavors to convince, “Haldir’s army is to pass through this city this evening, following your route to Elven lands. You have prevailed here, Legolas, and now it is time.”

“My heart lies ahead,” Legolas contends. “I am not going backward.”

“This is not a matter of the heart. You do not need to face the same lonely end Haldir did.”

This earns Aragorn a thorny stare. “He was among his brothers in arms,” Legolas states.

“He was here only at Lady Galadriel’s bidding.” Aragorn pauses, seeming stung to admit this truth out loud. “It was not his battle. Were he instead defending Elvendom –- "

“No,” Legolas surges to argue before he can gather himself. “How little you understand, Aragorn,” he says, voice tempered but anger pronounced in his gaze. “As though untimely ends are the province of Men alone. As though we are not all kindred in this strife, regardless of whence we came. No, you must think me faithless that I would retreat now.”

“I do not want to lose you where I can help it.”

Legolas does not allow himself to wonder. “You cannot help it,” he says, archly. “My destiny is not writ on your hand for you to know and dictate to me.”

Standing, Aragorn seems to wrest control from a half-buried panic. “No, but I know my own destiny. And it bids me to where I may well find ruin. I do not fight it, though I prepare for my end. I obey my destiny alone and not gladly –- but because I must.”

Legolas rises fluidly. “You are not Beren, Aragorn,” he says. Aragorn’s expression falters. “You do not live Beren’s stories and you shall not share Beren’s fate. You are not bound to another Man's verses and deeds. Even you, Isildur’s heir, do not know what is destined for you, save you wish it were so simple to resign yourself to it.”

Aragorn’s grey eyes harden. “To say nothing of the Elven prince who does not answer when his own home –- his own destiny -- asks for him.”

Legolas does not mask the hurt on his face, a great cleave in his chest that lingers after the blow. Aragorn lets go of a breath; Legolas discerns regret in the sound, but he is already promptly regaining his poise and turning on his heel away from Aragorn to face the structures of Edoras. Men come and go; they are rehabilitating, they are in higher spirits than they have been, but marred with loss and apprehension.

Legolas knows their aches, intimately. He feels unmoored. Drifting helpless to the gaping maw of the river, and toward --

“If you ask that I take my leave of you,” he tells Aragorn at length, “I will do as you say.”

And he waits. Their shared silence takes root, knotted and thick.

But it is Aragorn who leaves instead, walking back inside with a heavy tread, eyes lowered.

+

The Elves leave soon after in the blue twilight, northward -- to Lothlórien, Rivendell, and at last the beleaguered Rhovanion forests. Legolas has his few possessions neatly stacked and ready to depart with him, but they remain untouched even as Legolas steps out to sip the fresh air and starshine wreathing the plains, sharing quiet words with his folk. Finally they bid him farewell and exit into the dusk.

He does not join them on their return north because, as his folk begin to runnel out and away from Edoras’ dust and gold, Aragorn rests a hand on Legolas’ shoulder. It slides down to the crook of Legolas’ elbow. He looks at Legolas. It is only a look.

Legolas stays.

+

The night draws in on Edoras. Aragorn finds his Dwarf and Elf in a little hall near their sleeping accommodations, sitting at a communal table near a cask of mead. Legolas’ eyes are trained on the outdoors, seeking out the constellations. The taste of Rohan's rudimentary brews is too bitter and weighty for Legolas to enjoy, Aragorn knows this, but he drinks as an act of diplomacy, and because Gimli is merrier with a drinking partner.

From a distance, he watches Legolas where he can. Some braver Rohirrim approach him to ask about his hair and how it keeps so splendid through terrible trials. They ask if he sustained any bruising at all at Helm’s Deep. Men are always curious, aren’t they? He recognizes Legolas’ expression as serene, patient; when they grab at Legolas’ hair or his wrist to admire his slender fingers and impeccable nails, their behavior ceases to be endearing and Legolas’ brows knit and Aragorn begins to make his way over, jaw clenched --

But Gimli shoves at them until their wonderment becomes too punitive, and they behave. Legolas casts a little smile at the Dwarf, who promptly steals Legolas’ mead to help him with it. Aragorn halts mid-step, feeling useless.

He has broken his commitment to Arwen, thinking himself good for enabling her to flee ravaged Middle-earth as Elrond wished; he hopes against hope she will wait for him to return alive and expertly step into his promised roles: king, husband, patriarch. Now he has loosed Legolas’ faith in him by isolating him as just periphery, needed less here than anywhere else the Elf cares to go.

Behold how well Aragorn son of Arathorn protects those he loves.

Another brief midnight conference with Théoden and Gandalf passes, and he digs the heels of his hands into his eyes, willing away the frustration and unwelcome energy thrumming in him.

He catches Legolas in brief moments –- pushing a pint of mead out of Gimli’s reach with a wise word of caution; keeping his piercing gaze out the open doors while Gimli intones Dwarvish lore; finally, singing to a couple of awestruck Rohirrim a stirring song of the birds in Mirkwood, a melody that shimmers past the halls out the doors across the hills along riverbanks and back to the sea of Rhovanion trees.

These Men are fortunate. Fortunate to be sitting so close to Legolas with no pretense, only to enjoy the proximity. Fortunate to be listening. Fortunate to be sharing this night with the Elf.

Aragorn wishes to join in the scene and meet Legolas in Sindarin, singing with him to stitch closed the cuts they had inflicted on one another with words. But it seems a sin to mar this flowering moment with his own voice and his clumsy language.

Aragorn’s own words to the Elf clamor in his mind, punishing.

And Legolas’ words.

You are not Beren.

Aragorn bows his head.

+

As Legolas guides Gimli to their sleeping arrangements, Aragorn finally joins them. Legolas had been waiting; he likens Aragorn’s arrival to the long-awaited relief of snowfall –- or begins to in dulcet tones, but Gimli is muttering to himself and rebuking attempts at help.

“But you know I am well,” Gimli counters any question ready on anyone’s lips. “How is it neither Man nor Elf know the celebrated stamina of Dwarves?!"

“Allow me to behold your stamina,” Legolas concedes, an arm draping across Gimli’s shoulders when the Dwarf sways just a degree or two on otherwise sturdy feet.

Gimli bids them good night and within a couple breaths, Aragorn hears telltale snoring in his and Legolas’ shared arrangements.

With that, the Elf cleanly strides toward the railing overlooking Rohan’s lands, seeking open night sky. When Aragorn appears by his side, he gifts Aragorn with a look that is inviting and yet so penetrating it could strike him down then and there.

Aragorn will never be used to it.

“The stars are glad of our seeing them, for they have been seeing much of us,” Legolas observes, gazing upward. Aragorn looks up at the heavens. “They have been charting our long path as studiously as Elves chart theirs.” He offers his empty hands to the night as though to catch the light that glows down on his skin. It seems to stain him in ethereality, but he is right there, and Aragorn could touch him if only he reached for him.

He thinks of doing it. He thinks of taking the Elf in his arms out here under Elbereth’s light, pinning him to this railing and locking him in, where he was meant to be. He thinks of Arwen sailing to the Undying Lands, and wonders how he could ever reach her again, because he is not Beren and will not be going to Valinor so easily as that, and he doesn’t know if he ever wanted to be Beren. He thinks of self-fulfilling prophecies. He asks himself how his mind became so indecisive when sinew and bone are humming their wants within him right now.

“I do not want to lose you,” Aragorn says before he can find a more careful turn of phrase.

Legolas’ expression goes unreadable, figuring another argument -– perhaps the final blow to their partnership. His gaze drops down to earth. “Edegil is bright tonight,” he notes vaguely, his voice hollowed out by the wind.

“I do not want to lose you, but,” Aragorn retries doggedly, “I cannot part with you. That is a strength I do not possess.” His mouth lengthens, something of a smile with no mirth.

Nor does he possess a Woodland Elf’s mettle, of youth both ancient and flourishing, courageous enough to receive what many things life can carry in it, because an Elf’s life is boundless.

No, Aragorn is a Man who understands the passage of time’s corporeality as surely as one holds an old epic in their hands -- turning the pages like clockwork as the stanzas narrate beginning, middle, and inevitable end.

And for all his proudest, most cherished wishes, Aragorn does not write in the margins of the old tales.

The night glows on golden hair, celestial, when Legolas tilts his head to regard him. “We were not designed to endure strife alone,” he tells Aragorn with no further elaboration. Aragorn turns those words over and over, reminded of what bewildering creatures Elves can be.

“Legolas,” he tries once more, plainly: “I am sorry. I regret today, even as we now stand together speaking. I do not want to drive you away.”

“Then you shall not,” Legolas responds, tranquil.

It will not suffice. He reaches for Legolas’ slim hand and takes some lukewarm victory in the surprise on the Elf’s face.

But surprise seems to bid Legolas to speak again: “I think that it is a long path you and I walk through this world beside each other. We may tread from time to time through thorns, or untamed wilds. We either turn away in defeat, or remain steadfast in navigating troubles together.” Legolas holds firmly to Aragorn’s hand then. “I would learn this terrain with you, happily. I have faith in you as I know you have in me.”

Conjuring a reply suitable for what feeling washes over him, washes him clean, is futile –- so Aragorn smiles, slow and affectionate.

Legolas smiles back and lowers his gaze. “It is a full life, Aragorn.”

Unseen weight falls from Aragorn’s shoulders.

Turning back to the nighttime scene, Legolas tips his head up again and closes his eyes. “Listen,” he murmurs, soothing. “A robin is singing like a flute above the roofs of Edoras, heartfelt and lilting. Its sweet melody seeks to be heard by another as spring begins to break from the winter’s thaw, promising life anew. The horses at home in their stables below us are sighing and hoofing the earth in reply, grateful for the musical accompaniment to the night breeze. The breeze reaches us presently. Do you feel it?”

Aragorn nods. His thumb traces Legolas’ smooth knuckles -– and maybe he has gone too far, or maybe it isn’t enough, because Legolas lifts his hand out of Aragorn’s grip, only to reach out gracefully and caress his jawline.

Instinctively Aragorn leans into the touch, and the Elf’s hand retreats.

“Scratchy,” Legolas remarks.

“You were wondering?” Aragorn rubs at his stubble.

“Yes. Men are full of mysteries,” Legolas tells him. “But here is one solved.”

+

**FOURTH AGE**

Legolas dreams of swimming. The wave tips him into the embrace of a cold and hallowed sea and he heeds its pull, he swims down. The sea is dense. All that's left of the world he knows could sink into it. He slips down and vanishes into the water like a tear, and finally he is whole.

The advent of the Fourth Age sees him resting outside nightly, bathing in starlight that glows sharper than sight, and as illuminating. Ithilien is growing, synchronized with the humble colony the Woodland Elves established within its rugged contours. Although only a stepping stone toward the Undying Lands, this settlement brings pleasure: Legolas plants saplings and seeds alongside his brave and sea-longing folk. He holds the Elven earth from Greenwood in his palms and relishes the dirt that clings to him like a lover. 

The plants take to Ithilien’s scrappy environment. Faramir looks absolutely delighted when he spots the first sprouts of herbs and thriving ferns in his young kingdom; his eyes well with tears and he laughs and pulls Legolas into an embrace. “What joy,” he declares, wiping his nose. There is sadness there, too. 

When Gimli travels from his dwellings closer to Éomer to meet Legolas and talk plans, he winningly presents Dorwinian wine. “You have learned well.” Legolas raises his eyebrows, impressed. 

“I have learned,” Gimli declares, “that I will not be the only drunk fool between us.”

Loitering on the callow gardens central in Faramir’s lands, they spread open illustrated plans for Man’s dominion. They lay those plans with the names of trees the Elves will encourage to grow, names of roads the Dwarves will design. Names of goods and resources and years and then, inevitably with every talk between them of the future, names of the beautiful icons within the Undying Lands.

They make plans. The books and the hasty drawings rustle idly in the breeze. The wine is drunk. The glasses lie empty in the grass.

While the afternoon drapes fair Ithilien in warmth, Gimli dozes with a smile on his face at the thought of Valinor and the Lady he loves there. Legolas slowly reads of the gold-draped mallorn trees of Lothlórien in his book, wondering whether he will find them in the Undying Lands, or if this will be yet another thing to bid farewell when he journeys West.

A shadow of wings outstretched glances his trousers and his head whips up in silent shock. A seagull has found him.

No.

He somberly realizes there is nothing there but cloud, impetuous starlings, leaves surfing the breeze; there is nothing there at all. Only a sigh.

+

King Elessar Telcontar, High King of Gondor, rides in with his Men in tow not an hour later, down the pathway glancing Legolas’ meadow. He is worn and looking feral as any good Ranger, out of the days before the silver crown alighted on his head and drenched him in glory. He has come straight from Arnor, mired in taming northwest boundaries and ready to share news with Faramir.

Legolas is sprawled on his stomach, poring over a book, and he turns his head to see Aragorn astride his horse in the distance. He sees Aragorn seeing him. But Aragorn is ensconced by all the king’s horses and all the king’s men, and he disappears in a blink of activity. Things have changed, as they will in Man’s world.

Behind closed doors, Faramir and Aragorn make their own plans.

Legolas tries to keep himself from incessantly, silently asking of every pear sliced open and enjoyed, of every poem shared among his Woodland folk, and of every formal visit to Aragorn’s halls in Minas Tirith, _Will this be the last time?_

A brief smile from Aragorn -– is this the last he'll see? Aragorn’s young son, Eldarion, approaching him eagerly to greet him in fumbling Sindarin -– is this the last Sindarin rhyme he ever teaches to the boy?

What a bittersweet gift to never know if what has gone is finished or is just about to return. It is a fearful blessing, to have no foresight and go stumbling blind just as Men do, just as Dwarves do.

He wishes, unwisely, that he had known Aragorn would only kiss him for one night and then never again for the rest of their lives. He would have counted every kiss. He would have never been able to let Aragorn go.

A profoundly soft kiss. Is this the last? 

Harder, persuasive. Is this?

A hand through his hair, the final intimate touch or the first of countless?

His weight on Aragorn’s lap and Aragorn tracing down the taut line of his spine while he catches Legolas’ lower lip between his teeth. Is it the last time?

The only time.

And then they had parted and the moment was gone and he could not save it.

+

**THIRD AGE**

With Gimli sleeping soundly, Aragorn asks Legolas where he desires to go within gold-thatched Edoras, but Legolas has stalled in his step. “You have need of sleep,” he reminds Aragorn.

Aragorn’s expression softens with memory; Legolas knows which. Hardly one spring past they had performed this familiar scene together, just when the landscape of Middle-earth began its tumult. The night remains, as it always will, evergreen in Legolas’ mind. “Or does fear of ghosts in this kingdom of Men keep you awake?” he leads coyly.

Instead of a smile, there arrives a moment where Aragorn draws himself up into something approaching a birch tree’s certainty, calling forth his kingly glory -– ah, Aragorn, it already rests upon you plain as the lines in the corners of your eyes, as inevitable as the march of Men’s time. 

Legolas smiles after a moment of watching Aragorn wrestle with a silent problem, and it seems to encourage Aragorn. 

“That night,” Isildur’s heir commences, “when you were closing my door that I might rest in Mirkwood, I had wondered if you would stay had I asked.”

“I would have,” Legolas answers simply.

The answer settles between them, a bridge. “Then I ought to have asked,” Aragorn says, almost to himself, “so that we may have shared more time together before the rending of this Age.”

“You need not regret what is past between us,” Legolas reassures him. “Estel, king of Men, your life is too brief for looking backward.”

Gently, Aragorn pulls Legolas away from the outside with a hand on his arm, and then they are inside Aragorn’s small room; the space smells faintly of pipe smoke, the stables, and Aragorn. Dark but for a candle. Rare seclusion.

The way Aragorn looks at him suddenly catches Legolas off-balance. “Gimli –- “ Legolas goes cold, ai, no, Gimli, how could you, no, no, _no_ -– “told me that you blossom under my smile.”

“What does that mean?” Legolas asks placidly. He holds his breath.

“Whatever a drunk Dwarf deems it to mean,” Aragorn responds with a chuckle, but he sobers too soon. He closes the door on the din of Rohirrim life while Legolas regards him cautiously.

“Well, then,” Legolas concludes.

Aragorn regards the flickering light for a solitary few moments. “I do not fear ghosts anymore,” he says. “But I did. Until our Fellowship took its first steps out of Imladris, in sleep I would at times dream of Isildur’s specter trailing my every step, not gone from the world we know. Haunting me. His arms were heavy round my neck like chains. I would freeze; his presence was cold as death. His ghost asked me how I would undo the evils Men had made, when I too was Man.” He pauses. “Just a man.”

Legolas means to intercede, but before he can refute _just_ , Aragorn reaches out and takes Legolas’ hand once more. His callused fingers are rough. “I fear the dead no longer.” He turns over Legolas’ open hand in his, tracing his lifeline with a thumb. “Instead, I fear that should I step off the page of some unknown story written for me -– should I stumble or fall in this role, I will lose the beauty that walks these paths of life beside me.”

An age passes between them; the constellations change above their heads as the world within this room turns, turns, turns foreign. 

“May we walk these paths long enough to return to fearing only ghosts,” Legolas says.

Aragorn inhales, frustrated. “Legolas,” he exhales. And once more, pained: “Legolas.”

Again, abruptly, Legolas comprehends --

Aragorn raises Legolas’ palm to his mouth and kisses it tenderly. The scratch of stubble against hand tickles him again; he hears only the deafening beats of his own heart, a frightened creature beholding the arrow come to pierce it.

Aragorn kisses his knuckles, lips lingering reverently as if beholding forest in autumn regalia, or in the breathless moment before the arrow sings -–

Aragorn steps closer and he shrinks back. A strange fate to fear sweetness where it runs freely as nectar, and as tempting. To fear intoxication from just a taste.

Aragorn touches at a long lock of Legolas’ hair, and brings it to his lips. He kisses the light tresses banded around his sun-darkened fingers. 

And then he lets Legolas’ hair fall from his grasp. 

And then he steps backward to the lonely plain of the center of the room and sits down, mouth in a grim line.

Before he can account for why he does it, or how to do it, Legolas has followed Aragorn and straddled his lap, knees balanced on the hard seat. 

Aragorn gazes up at him.

He braces his hands delicately on the back of Aragorn’s chair and dips his head with a somnambulant grace, dazedly feeling himself bestow a tentative kiss on Aragorn’s lips. His hair brushes Aragorn’s cheek, veiling them both. Seclusion.

Slow and fast and unknown and completely natural, Aragorn reaches up to trail his fingers down the back of Legolas’ neck (a shiver) and then pulls him in deep. It is an unceremonious kiss, Aragorn’s stubble harsh against Legolas’ chin while Legolas licks against Aragorn’s lower lip to ask for more far too soon. When their tongues meet and press and move, Aragorn hums, low and longing.

Here is the hand that would compel Legolas to bend like a sapling in a storm, tangling in his hair before dropping to pet the hollow of his throat hidden under his high collar. The hand caressing the back of Legolas’ thigh as though he were a precious artifact. The sensation curls its tendrils up Legolas’ spine. Want coils in him.

Aragorn grasps Legolas’ hips to bid him to sit down on his lap instead of perching above him, so remote. The new contact makes him want to unfurl in the Man's arms, confess something dark and messy as honey, unbecoming of an Elf, but Sindarin dies on his lips when Aragorn’s hand slides along his inner thigh -– Legolas pitches forward to kiss Aragorn again, learning quickly how their lips fit together, wanting to feel it once more as soon as it's gone. His fingers worry at leather and linen Aragorn wears, mindless, when Aragorn ducks his head to track biting kisses down his neck.

When Legolas makes a beseeching sound, Aragorn gives him his attention and surely he sees the mess he’s made: the way Legolas’ face flushes, the way his breathing lingers too heavily. 

He aches to be devoured and he fails to hide it.

“What do you want, Legolas?” Aragorn asks him, still composed for all his tousled hair and stained hands and scuffed boots.

Legolas finds himself without language, unable to put a voice to what he had hoped he was communicating even without the experience Men gained more frequently, and earlier. 

“Show me,” Aragorn tells him.

Wordlessly, Legolas pulls at the hand on his thigh and guides it to palm against the front of his trousers. He spreads his legs wider over Aragorn’s, hips pressing up against Aragorn’s palm. Aragorn’s focus on Legolas is burning, relentless. Legolas’ hips rise to meet Aragorn’s hand. And again. And again. And again, pleasuring himself against it.

Finally, Aragorn caresses him roughly through the fabric; yes, Legolas thinks, yes, yes, pliantly tipping his head back. 

Unseeingly, he hooks his slender fingers into Aragorn’s careworn belt and draws himself ever more closer, wanting the Man’s desire to press heavy against him so he knows. And it does, undeniable and demanding.

Aragorn grinds against him and Legolas bites his lip savagely to quell the wild thrill that would undo him. His fingers work swiftly in spite of himself, unbuckling the belt and the ties at Aragorn’s trousers. He feels the Man mirroring his movements, but does not prepare for the sensation of Aragorn's hand sliding around his shaft and stroking him in a firm, intentional rhythm. Legolas’ hands go still as stone. He dips his head to see Aragorn’s hand on him.

Aragorn presses his mouth to Legolas', heated, murmuring, “Like this?” 

Adrift, unmoored. Aragorn makes slow work of him.

“Yes,” Legolas whispers, his head tilting sonorously in answer, a flower following the sunlight. “Yes,” he whispers again, when Aragorn compels the word from him with the next heavy stroke. “Yes.”

With his other hand, Aragorn brushes a stray hair out of Legolas' face, grazes against cheekbones and pointed ears with the focus of one committing a moment to memory. Legolas leans in to kiss him again, not wanting to think of remembrance. This is right now.

When he strokes him faster, Legolas whimpers into his mouth and pushes himself to work at Aragorn’s trousers. He wants to do the same to him, to give the Man what he is being given, but within a moment Aragorn has Legolas’ wrists locked in his impossibly strong hand. He holds fast.

“Only you,” Aragorn says, his voice gravelly, bidding Legolas to stay, to come, to move, with touch. “Just feel.”

Legolas' breathing goes light, but takes on a primal shallowness -– like running for one's life. Like dodging the arrows. Like crouching in wait, hiding from a bitter end. His eyes drop closed when --

“Look at me,” Aragorn says.

Legolas opens his eyes, meeting Aragorn's. He feels exposed, a flower plucked from its vine, ready to be crushed or caressed. Laid bare and vulnerable; feeling stolen and utterly divine for being stolen.

It is maddeningly good, this having more and wanting still more. Aragorn’s thumb pets at the tip of his desire and pulls a wounded noise out of Legolas. He rolls his hips up with more insistence, in time with Aragorn’s quickening strokes. 

Close to the precipice and ready to fall, he pulls in futility at Aragorn’s strong grip on his wrists, wanting to touch –- touch himself, touch Aragorn, but he won’t get away that easily.

“Look at me,” Aragorn murmurs again, fervently, and it is the very sensation of being carved open, helpless against the tide. Aragorn is encouraging messes.

“Please -- ,” Legolas hisses, and Aragorn lets out a breath like to hear the word is the most holy thing in this world to him, “oh -– “

And he bucks urgently into that hand with his eyes gone half-lidded, Aragorn’s face swimming out of focus right as he gives in but Aragorn just keeps –- there -– and he comes like being pummeled by a wave, making a sound distant to his own ears.

Aragorn releases his wrists. 

He somehow emerges still breathing, whole. His body sings. He places another kiss on Aragorn’s lips, tremulous and light as a leaf on still waters.

“Mm,” Aragorn responds, his own arousal painfully insistent by the time Legolas takes him with both hands. It sends a rush through Legolas’ humming body; it is a benediction to be wanted by Aragorn, to be wanted like this, to feel Aragorn pumping into his grasp, so close.

He craves giving Aragorn more, more of feeling, more of knowing.

"Legolas,” Aragorn says, almost a growl, hands wandering to Legolas’ waist, his rear, his thighs and pressing him in closer than is possible. He is pulling ineffectively at Legolas' collar, and yes, Legolas also wants their clothes off, he wants more, will always be selfishly wanting more, but he also could not imagine anything better than this.

Voices, racket of Men and their lives outside the door encourage no more hesitation, because the night flies onward and they are on the verge of diving deeper still into the murk of carnage and loss; with the chaotic world ceaseless on the other side of the wall, only Aragorn can hear when Legolas whispers in his ear, “Dirty me.”

Aragorn comes on him hard. He makes a mess, sullying Legolas’ hands and tunic. He kisses Legolas, adulatory, his hands unsteady in Legolas’ hair and then insistent, and Legolas refuses nothing. He wants to stay on Aragorn's lap and ride him ragged, or for Aragorn to bend him over the unyielding wooden chair and take him, or however he wants to have him, just more, anything Aragorn could give and ask from him. He wants to confess words of love to him, audacious and free, forgetting the war and worry for tradition and ideals.

But they have waited too long to have this moment, and a knock rattles the door, and Théoden needs to see Aragorn presently, because some trouble has found them all too soon.

Aragorn catches himself while Legolas slips off him deftly; the son of Arathorn composes himself with a monarch’s dignity, checking himself over. He grabs his sword but pauses to brush a couple errant strands of hair out of Legolas’ face, trying to convey something Legolas can only hope at. "Wait?" Aragorn asks quietly, thinking it won't be long. The Rohirrim on the other side of the door are waiting, waiting on Aragorn.

"I will," Legolas says.

Aragorn opens the door and leaves.

This is the final time in their lives they are alone together.

+

**FOURTH AGE**

The seasons take on a new hue, bright with possibility; with verve the branches offer their petals and fruit and seeds and the vernal ponds fill with tadpoles and then frogs and then glossy frog eggs and then the water vanishes, but the creatures of the wood hold the water to its promise to return. 

The Sea is large and distant; Legolas bends to hold the earth in his hands because the Sea is too large to hold; he keeps planting, singing with his folk, teaching Faramir about the humble desires of plants and the small, good creatures that live among them. Faramir is a skilled nurturer; reassured, the roots grab ahold of Ithilien even as Legolas’ own feet step ever lighter on the earth. Adrift.

Aragorn wants to talk to him when he parts with Faramir for the afternoon, even if he can't shake his attendants. He exudes calm in his familiar way, but he seeks something. Aragorn smiles down at him where he sits with the earth, a smile warm as sunlight. He asks Legolas about the natural beauty flourishing in Ithilien. 

The earth here welcomes, Legolas tells Aragorn; it takes naught but kind words and touch to encourage Ithilien to provide. “Ithilien is scarred with new knowing, but still yearns to grow. I plant the seeds with thoughts of beauty,” Legolas tells him, “so that they grow with the memory of beauty. And all will know.”

“What will they know?” 

“That we were here once.”

Aragorn kneels beside him and Legolas inanely notices his noble raiment soak up the damp soil. “Your knees will stain, my lord,” Legolas reminds him.

“I know someday soon you will be gone from Middle-earth. I know you want this,” Aragorn says, quietude in his voice. “But I hope that when the time comes for your journey that you will tell me. I would like to say goodbye.”

Legolas keeps his tone light. “No, I tarry here.” They both know there is little left for the Elves in Middle-earth but the fading gardens and rooms gone silent, long having forgotten the echo of Elvish song. But -– “Here I will remain as long as you are.”

“As long as I am,” Aragorn repeats, turning over the words.

As long as you _are_.

“And thereafter,” Aragorn adds, “when my years are passed, perhaps my ghost will join you on your next adventure.”

Legolas smooths down the generous earth. “Oh, I do not think so. You shall fly from here joyous and free.”

He cannot bring Aragorn with him. There is nothing of the broken world that Legolas can bring with him, save for what memories he holds as close as yesterday in his mind.

“My lord,” Legolas starts, and Aragorn grimaces and means to put a stop to that title, until, “may we steal you for a short hour?”

Aragorn pauses. “Where are we going?”

Legolas looks over toward the new path where Gimli waits in a heroic stance, fists on his hips. “No time to lose,” Gimli calls. “We are in for a cold evening.”

Aragorn’s attendants take umbrage; his advisors seem at war with themselves about an outing but they allow it, provided some of King Elessar’s company may keep a watchful eye on the party of three. Aragorn makes an unorthodox king, kinetic and ready to tear his robes with strife and bloody himself in battle alongside his people. It suits this new Age, Legolas decides. It suits Aragorn. He is still learning about Aragorn and certainly likes everything he learns.

The three of them hurry to a nearby spring, a hidden jewel to crown Ithilien’s stark youth. The wind haunts their steps. The shadows have already begun their long march into night. Undeterred, they follow the forested declivity down and halt at the rocky little bank; Gimli and Legolas kick off shoes and throw off clothes like nothing. Aragorn delays where he stands, glancing back to the meadow where his company awaits.

Gimli stomps into the water and yells about how wintry it feels while Legolas briskly folds his clothing and wades in waist-deep, gathering the water in his soil-dusted hands and pressing the water to his cheek. It is silken like a kiss, and swift to escape his fingers. He surges into the water and swims on past Gimli. The Dwarf churns up the clean water in his own struggle while Legolas artlessly paddles away, neither of them adept swimmers.

Aragorn huffs a laugh, left alone on the bank. He looks on as they swim out. 

Legolas makes it to midwater, as far from the bank as water will take him, where his long legs cannot touch the bottom. He submerges and kicks to the rocky floor of the spring where he opens his eyes to look around the new world. Ribbons of water grasses slick past his limbs, sheltering the glint of curious little fish. Below him sit smooth pebbles, satisfying and musical to rub together. He wants to stay underwater and begin life anew down here rather than glimpse Aragorn alone on the shore, back in the meadow that one day soon neither of them will walk. 

Better to let the water persuade him under, where everything is already gone.

Where everything gone goes, he does not know. 

But then Aragorn’s arm -– he knows that dark skin and callused hand -– is reaching down blindly and feeling around for him where he has sunken, and he surfaces with a little tap at Aragorn’s wrist. 

Aragorn is effortlessly treading water before him, naked and grinning like a child. “I feared you transformed into a water spirit down there,” he says. Legolas laughs.

Gimli sputters his way over to them, reaching for Legolas’ shoulder as a buoy, which only succeeds in dunking Legolas under. Legolas gulps water and peels off Gimli’s grasp. “Now do not tell me, King Elessar,” the Dwarf puffs and huffs, “this was not what you sorely needed!”

Aragorn splashes Gimli and then chokes when Legolas splashes him. Gimli proudly splashes them both.

How long would an Elf need to swim to reach Valinor? 

Could an Elf pull a Man and a Dwarf with him through the swells? How long before he would be swept under for good? Would the Undying Lands have mercy on him for desperately trying to save what he cannot save? 

He knows he cannot protect them from the oncoming flood; he cannot stop the Sea and the way things on this earth simply let go. 

He loves Gimli, and he is in love with Aragorn, and he cannot save them. He knows this.

Legolas follows Aragorn and Gimli’s lead and floats on his back. The lush tree boughs sway wordless peace above their heads, dappling them in light and shadow. "Thank you," Aragorn says suddenly to them, his eyes watching the clouds. "For this."

What will Legolas bring with him, close as yesterday in his mind, when he leaves here?

Thranduil embracing him with such ferocity when he returns home from the war that finally, finally he allows himself to dissolve into tears against his father’s warm, fragrant robes. 

Singing beside his fellow Woodland Elves as they step out from the great forests of Greenwood for the last time, bound for the West.

The Hobbits’ cheery, intrepid footsteps as they talk of cherished places and what separates a good from a great breakfast. 

The ruins of empires like great bowls that humbly accept the snow, seeds, nests, fallen leaves. 

Aragorn, olive skin and dark eyes and slow smile. 

And this moment right here, longing and gratitude in the waters that will exile him after love, after that great flood.


End file.
